


Words We Don't Feel

by elyssblair



Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, M/M, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-17
Updated: 2010-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-13 17:51:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elyssblair/pseuds/elyssblair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas songs as avoidance behavior</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words We Don't Feel

Eric turned out the lights and hummed off-key Christmas carols all the way down to his car. A glance around the empty parking lot and the humming got louder as he allowed the happy sound of _Jingle Bells_ to take the place of all the things he wasn’t thinking about on the drive home.

He wasn’t thinking about Nell, heading home to a welcoming family. Or of Hetty dropping her off at the airport on the way to a Holiday party, with a guest list the older woman guarded more tightly than Cole’s little black book. He wasn’t thinking about Kensi and Deeks or their weird truce as they headed off do good deeds together.

The tune on his lips switched to _Here Comes Santa Clause_ as Eric waited for a light to change.

And he wasn’t thinking about Sam and G… Callen. He was not thinking about their plans to watch the game the together on Christmas day.

As he turned onto his street, the hum kicked into _Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree_ as he made the effort not to think how all but one of them had come up to wish him a happy holiday before they left. Or how none of them thought to ask about his plans for the time off.

Most important of all, Eric did not think about the one who did not even stop to say goodbye at all.  
Inside his quiet apartment, he dropped the iPod in its dock and cranked up his Holiday playlist. He sang along to _Santa Baby_ with a strained smile, hand shaking only a little on the glass of wine he poured himself. Then he sank onto his couch with his laptop to return his families traditional Christmas emails.

Eric couldn’t blame them. It’s not like he was any better at reaching out or keeping in touch. Emails, Facebook updates and occasional birthday phone calls were enough to assuage the guilt of a family that had nothing in common anymore.

He sang _Do You Hear What I Hear?_ along with Vince Gill as he wrote to his parents about the great weather and plans for a fun New Year. Keeping it vague and upbeat, as always.

He didn’t tell them about the best friend who’d been abducted and held prisoner for months. Or how he’d had to watch, helpless, when Dom had been murdered on a screen in front of his eyes. That he’d watched the man bleed out just when he’d started to let himself belief they’d get him back safe and sound.

He didn’t mention Nate, the one person he could talk to who understood what it was like to be part of the team and yet separate from it. Nate, who’d disappeared overseas on some top secret job. Maybe Nell would understand, but Eric wasn’t sure he had it in him to open himself up to anyone again.

He poured another glass of wine and let the words of Winter Wonderland wash through him as he composed a nearly identical inconsequential email to his sister.

Like every year, he kept it light and impersonal.

No one really wanted to know about the tragedies he faced or the pain he swallowed down to keep up the easy going front.

No one needed to know. So he kept silent about Nate and Dom. Just as he’d kept silent about Callen being shot the year before.

 _Little Drummer Boy_ played on as Eric filled the glass yet again, enjoying the soothing warmth numbing him from the inside out.

No one wanted to know that he’d been half in love with the enigmatic agent. That for months there’d been flirting and banter, texts and teasing between them. There’d been a sizzle and a tension leading them inexorably toward… something.

At least, that’s the way it had felt to Eric.

All that evaporated when G. was shot. As he healed, he’d refused to see anyone but Sam and Hetty, who’d simply ignored his requests to be left alone.

Then, one day, Eric had walked out and G. was just there, at the bottom of the stairs. Whole. Healthy. ALIVE. The spark, the compulsion, still there, still stretching between them.

In the space between one blink and the next, it disappeared. Knowing heat gone completely, replaced with cool professionalism.

And that’s pretty much all Eric had gotten from G. for the past eighteen months.

He sang along softly to Mariah’s _All I Want For Christmas Is You_ as he stared at the empty bottle of wine on his end table. And at his phone resting next to it.

Then the phone was in his hand as he tapped out a message that had nothing to do with what he really wanted to say.

*Merry Christmas, G*

Even as he hit send and gently set the phone back on the table, Eric was calling himself ten kinds of fool. Callen had not responded to a single non-work related text from him in well over a year.

Frustrated with himself, with Callen, with the world and the holidays, Eric gathered up the wine and the glass. With a tired sigh, he took everything into the kitchen.

Glass rinsed, bottle recycled and apartment tidied, Eric turned off Harry Connick Jr. in the middle of _Happy Elf_ on his way to bed.

The buzzing of his phone stopped him mid-way to his room. The surprised smile that unfolded across his lips as he checked the screen was the first real one of the night.

*Merry Christmas, Eric*

His thumbs hovered over the buttons, a hundred thoughts and feelings wanting to spill out. His heart wanting to say something, anything to keep the brief tentative connection going.

But what else was there to say. The words he had, Callen didn’t want to hear. And, for tonight anyway, he was tired of using ones he didn’t really feel.

Carefully, he saved the message, set the phone down and headed for bed, hoping the wine would offer him sleep without dreams.


End file.
